Faith on Trial on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and on IowaCatholicRadio.com, examines the influence of law and society on Christianity and people of faith. "Like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Friday, February 28, 2014

A federal judge ruled, this week, in favor of an atheist
group who sued to halt the
construction of a veterans’ memorial in the southern
California city of Lake Elsinore. Pacific Justice Institute represents the
city.

The design of the memorial includes a small section
depicting a WWII soldier kneeling at the graveside of a fallen comrade. The
Washington D.C. based American Humanist Association took issue with the design
that includes crosses and Stars of David—despite the fact that it accurately
mirrors foreign WWII cemeteries."

"This is a disappointing setback for the rights of
the people to honor those who have given their life in defense of our
nation," said Brad Dacus, president of PJI and a frequent guest on FOT.

“We can't erase history. If you visit foreign war
cemeteries from that era, you will see the exact same scene this memorial was
portraying," said Michael Peffer, lead counsel and director of PJI's Santa
Ana office. The city is exploring its options for appealing the decision and released the following statement: “We are disappointed with the court’s
decision. We plan to take a close look at the ruling. Our goal has always been
to recognize the men and women who have bravely served to protect our country
and our freedoms. We remain committed to this goal.”

Tuesday
we will be joined by Catherine Short, legal director for Life Legal Defense Foundation, a California-based public interest law firm providing legal
services for the pro-life cause.She
will be discussing the recent oral arguments in the United States Supreme Court
over Massachusetts buffer-zone law.

Catherine Short

That
law prohibits anyone not connected with an abortion clinic from entering within
thirty-five feet of the clinic’s entrance.

The
law was challenged and the appeals court held that the law was not overly broad or
vague, and thus ruled that it was not an unlawful restraint on protected
speech. Pro-life advocates appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States,
and the Supreme Court heard the matter in January. A description of the case
can be found here.

Catherine
works with our frequent guest, Dana Cody, president of the Life Legal Defense
Foundation.She began her pro-life
career as a sidewalk counselor outside an abortion clinic. Over the next few
years, her efforts turned to using her legal training to protect the rights of
other pro-life activists, including rescuers, sidewalk counselors, and crisis
pregnancy centers. In 1989, she participated in establishing Life Legal Defense
Foundation, which she now serves as legal director.

Catherine
has written numerous briefs for state and federal courts, including petitions
for certiorari and amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court and
California Supreme Court. Her primary focus is defending the free speech rights
of pro-life activists at every level of both state and federal court.

Join
Deacon Mike Manno and co-host Gina Noll Tuesday at 9 a.m. (Central) on Iowa
Catholic Radio, 1150 AM, 88.5 & 94.5 FM or on IowaCatholicRadio.com for a
discussion of this and other legal issues of interest to people of faith.The program will be re-broadcast at 9 p.m. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

On our program this week our guest
was Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, and we
discussed the case of the Tacoma, Washington high school pro-life group that
was denied permission to post several pro-life posters promoting their group.

Today, the Wilson Students for Life
(“WSFL”), led by student Bryce Asberg, have received a response from high school
administrators that offers a partial resolution to the group’s complaints:
events requested by WSFL are now approved, but all student groups have lost the
right to post expressive posters throughout the school. This response
follows on concerns raised by Asberg’s attorneys from the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, national counsel of Students for Life of America. Two weeks ago,
Thomas More Society, along with Washington attorney Theresa Schrempp, sent a
letter demanding that the school end its discriminatory treatment of the
pro-life student group, which had faced consistent obstacles when trying to get
approval for events and posters.

Bryce Asberg and his parents met
with the principal on Monday, to discuss resolving the discrimination against
Wilson Students For Life. The principal granted the group’s request to hold a
pro-life Day of Silence at their high school, and also officially notified WSFL
of its approval to host a diaper drive, collecting diapers for a local
pregnancy center.

However, in response to WSFL’s
request to be allowed to hang its pro-life posters, the school decided this
week to prohibit all groups from
hanging posters containing any graphics, opinions, or other expressive text.
The principal’s proposal only allows posters to have meeting or event
information on them, banning all other messages. The effect of this
policy is that the expressive nature of any student group’s speech will be
limited to the audience that actually attends the meetings or events, with no
ability to provoke thought or spark debate with the viewers of the poster who
would likely not attend the actual event.

“The new restrictive speech policy
by the Wilson High School administration teaches a

Kristan Hawkins

harmful message to their
students,” said Peter Breen, a former FOT guest and vice president and senior counsel
of the Thomas More Society. “Instead of showing these young citizens the
value of the robust exchange of ideas guaranteed by the First Amendment, the
school officials are teaching that the government will go to great lengths to
silence messages that it opposes, including the pro-life message. Is that the
lesson we want these future voters to take to heart?”

After the meeting, Bryce expressed
his concerns to the principal that the new policy would communicate to students
that when speech causes conflict, it’s okay for the school to simply shut it
down.

“While we are pleased that the
Wilson High School administration is now allowing Wilson Students for Life’s
events to proceed, we are disappointed that the school has chosen to implement
a policy that will limit every student’s ability to publicly advocate for
causes they believe in, simply to avoid the pro-life message,” said this week’s
FOT guest Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America. “They are
sending a message to all Wilson High students that if they stand up for their
rights, everyone’s will be taken away. How can Wilson High School say it is
preparing students for the ‘real world’ when they won't allow important issues,
issues that directly affect young people, to be discussed in the public
square?”

Monday, February 24, 2014

The Little Sisters of the Poor, a
religious order of nuns who care of the neediest elderly in society, started
their appeal before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday,
asking the court to protect their religious freedom. The lawsuit
challenges the controversial HHS mandate, which forces the Little Sisters to
either pay crippling fines to the IRS or violate their faith by participating
in the government’s delivery scheme for life-terminating drugs and devices.

Last month, the U. S. Supreme
Court temporarily protected the Little Sisters from the mandate. The
Little Sisters are now before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to
extend that protection, and filed their opening brief Monday.

“We are thrilled the Supreme Court
temporarily protected the Little Sisters from having to violate their
conscience or pay crippling IRS fines. We are hopeful the Tenth Circuit
will give them more lasting protection,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
and lead counsel for Little Sisters of the Poor. “The federal
government is a massive entity that has lots of ways to deliver contraceptives
to people–it doesn’t need to force the Little Sisters to participate.”

The injunction from the Supreme
Court provided the Little Sisters short-term protection from being forced to
sign and deliver the controversial government forms authorizing, ordering, and
incentivizing their health benefits administrator to provide contraceptives,
sterilization, and drugs and devices that may cause early abortions. Instead,
the Little Sisters simply had to inform HHS of their religious identity and
objections.

Protection has been given to 18
of 19 similar cases. “Virtually every other party who asked for protection
from the mandate has been given it,” said Rienzi.

The Little Sisters are joined in the
lawsuit by their religious health benefit providers, Christian Brothers
Services and Christian Brothers Employee Benefits Trust, and hundreds of
similarly-situated Catholic ministries that obtain their health benefits from
the same providers. The Plaintiffs are also represented by Locke Lord, a
national law firm, and by Kevin Walsh, a law professor at the University of
Richmond.

To date, there are
currently 92 lawsuits challenging the unconstitutional HHS mandate.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Kristan
Hawkins, president and executive director of Students for Life of America
(SFLA), will join us next Tuesday to discuss the current campaign against
pro-life student groups on college and high school campuses across the country.

The mission of SFLA is to end
abortion by educating students about the issues of abortion, euthanasia, and
infanticide; identifying pro-life student leaders; equipping student pro-lifers
with the training, skills and resources to be effective and successful;
promoting student activity to other local, college and national organizations.

Since
becoming executive director of SFLA in 2006, Kristan has helped to more than
triple the number of campus pro-life groups in the United States from 181 to
nearly 700 in 40 states.As executive director,
Kristan directs the mission and strategy of SFLA and serves as the
organization’s official spokeswoman. She has appeared on Fox News, CNN, EWTN,
Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson and the Christian Broadcasting Network; she
is frequently blogger for LifeNews.com and has also been quoted in numerous
national and regional newspapers such as the Washington Times, Washington Post,
FoxNews.com.

Join Deacon Mike Manno and co-host
Gina Noll Tuesday at 9 a.m. (Central) – and rebroadcast at 9 p.m. – on Iowa
Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming live on
IowaCatholicRadio.com, and don’t forget to “like” us on Facebook and follow us on
Twitter (@FaithOnTrial).

Thursday, February 20, 2014

A follow-up to Deacon
Mike and Gina discussion last Tuesday on Faith On Trial: The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has sent letters to Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin
this week after the schools needlessly removed Bibles from all university guest
rooms after receiving complaints from an atheist group.

Freedom from Religion Foundation complained that allowing groups like Gideons International, a Christian organization, to place Bibles in guest rooms
violated the First Amendment. The Alliance Defending Freedom letters debunk
those claims, explain that the Bibles do not violate the Constitution, and
encourage the universities to restore the Bibles to the guest rooms rather than
surrender to the atheist group’s unfounded legal threats and inaccurate
demands.

“Public universities, which are the marketplaces of ideas, should understand
that the First Amendment does not require them to purge something from campus
just because it happens to be religious. Rather, the Constitution requires them
to accommodate religion,” said Litigation Staff Counsel Travis Barham. “The
Bibles can legitimately stay because their presence in guest rooms is simply a
discrete way of accommodating the needs of traveling guests. They are in no way
a government promotion of religion.”

The ADF letters to the universities state, “In reality, the First Amendment
does not require you to remove these Bibles, and by removing them, you may have
demonstrated the very viewpoint discrimination and hostility towards religion
that the First Amendment prohibits…. The Supreme Court and numerous other
federal courts have repeatedly condemned efforts to exclude or restrict religious
materials and activities as viewpoint or content discrimination, both at
universities and elsewhere.”

“By allowing Bibles to be placed in their guest rooms, these universities were
not unconstitutionally promoting religion to guests but were merely serving
their guests’ needs and desires,” added Senior Legal Counsel David Hacker. “The
Freedom From Religion Foundation neglected to mention that no court has ruled
that universities who provide these Bibles violate the First Amendment.
Universities should not allow themselves to be browbeaten into taking
unnecessary and potentially unconstitutional actions

“A healthy pluralism, one which genuinely respects
differences and values them as such, does not entail privatizing religions in
an attempt to reduce them to the quiet obscurity of the individual’s conscience
or to relegate them to the enclosed precincts of churches, synagogues or
mosques. This would represent, in effect, a new form of discrimination and
authoritarianism.”

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Wilson High School in Tacoma,
Washington has received a letter from the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based public interest law firm, demanding that the
school end its discriminatory treatment of a pro-life student group. Wilson Students for Life (“WSFL was established in
the Fall of 2013 “loudly proclaim the pro-life message.” Since its
founding, the group has faced constant hostility from the school’s
administration, such as forbidding the group to hang its posters or host
certain events, while other student groups have faced no similar restrictions.

Students for Life Poster

“Public schools have a duty to treat
all student groups equally,” said Peter Breen, Vice President and Senior
Counsel of the Thomas More Society. “Wilson High School’s current policy
allows administrators to censor any messages they deem ‘offensive’—in this
case, any pro-life message—while allowing other groups broad freedom of
speech. The administration is violating the rights of the students
involved in Wilson Students for Life, who do not lose their constitutionally
protected freedom of speech when they enter the schoolhouse door.”

The group selected two posters to
promote its club and asked the administration’s permission to hang these
posters. The first read “Since Roe v. Wade 1/3 of our generation has been
aborted” with a picture of a milk carton and the word “missing” above the photo
of a baby. The second poster quotes President Ronald Reagan: “I’ve noticed that
everyone who is for abortion is already born.”

The administration refused to give
WSFL permission to hang the posters. The administration stated that the
school policy only allows posters that “do not offend staff or students, put
others down if they have a different belief/opinion, or otherwise cause
disruption.” WSFL’s posters, the administration maintained, would violate
this policy because they promote a message rather than solely promoting the
group’s meetings.

After the administration’s denial of
WSFL’s posters, school administrators met with WSFL leaders to “give them
advice” on how to best run their club. On student said he left the
meeting feeling like his group was encouraged to only host events after school,
while other groups were allowed to do what they wanted during the school
day.

“The Wilson High School
administration cannot be allowed to trample on the constitutional rights of
Wilson Students for Life,” said Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America. “Our pro-life students will not accept their right to free speech
being taken away. Sadly, this case shows that viewpoint discrimination is
alive and well in today’s schools and that administrators think they can still
get away with it. Students for Life of America is proud to stand with
Wilson Students for Life to demand that the Wilson High School
administration reverse their unjust decision and give equal treatment to all
students and student groups, regardless of their views on abortion.”

The federal Equal Access Act
requires that schools give each student group the same opportunities, without
discriminating against any group. In 2002, the United States Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that a Washington school which gave one group
access to its bulletin boards must give that access to all student
groups. Moreover, a number of Supreme Court decisions, such as Tinker
v. Des Moines Independent Sch. Dist., have held that students’ speech
cannot be silenced simply because the administration has vague fears of
disruption.

“Wilson Students for Life is
passionate about the pro-life movement,” stated Bryce Asberg, Founder of Wilson
Students for Life, “and we will continue to stand for life in our community. We
simply desire to be allowed to express our views.”

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

A University of Alabama official removed a previously
approved pro-life student group’s hallway display last week without any
notification to the group after she claimed that some students found the
display offensive. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent the student
group, Bama Students for Life, which provided a letter to the university
Tuesday to register a formal complaint about the incident.

The display, which featured several abortion-related facts, pictures of women
who died as a result of having an abortion, and two small pictures of aborted
babies, was among numerous other student group displays. A university official claimed
that university policy allows her to remove displays that have “offensive or
graphic material”; however, the university’s policy pertaining to display cases
mentions nothing about offensive or graphic content.

“Universities are
supposed to be the marketplace of ideas, not arenas for censoring particular
viewpoints just because someone feels offended,” said Legal Counsel Matt Sharp.
“We support Bama Students for Life and look forward to continuing to working
with them to ensure that their constitutional freedoms are protected.”

On Jan. 17, Bama Students for Life placed the display in a display case it
reserved in a hallway of the Ferguson Student Center. When the club’s president
and another member of the club went to check on the display Feb. 6, they found
that the university had removed it. They went to the center’s event coordinator
to ask what happened. The coordinator told the students that she removed the
display after receiving complaints that its content was offensive.

As the letter to the university states, “We believe that the removal of our
pro-life display violates our First Amendment right to free speech. The United
States Supreme Court has said that educators cannot ban offensive speech…. The
Ferguson Center permits all kinds of speech by other students and student
groups that many people would find ‘offensive’ or ‘graphic.’”

“For example,” the letter continues, “on one bulletin board is an ad for the UA
Theatre & Dance program’s presentation of ‘Blood Wedding.’ The poster
states that the event is ‘For Mature Audiences’ and features blood stained
glass superimposed on a picture of a bride and groom. A few months ago the
Ferguson Center Art Gallery displayed student artwork, and one painting showed
male full frontal nudity. Other student groups are also permitted to display
information about women’s health, safety issues, and the consequences of sex.
All of these problems were addressed in our pro-life display that provided
facts and information on the harm caused by abortion--both to the infant who is
killed and to the mother.”

“This incident is yet another all-too-common example of university
administrations attempting to silence speech with which they or others
disagree,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America,
which honored Bama Students for Life as its 2014 Group of the Year. “Bama
Students for Life deserves to have its rights protected, and we look forward to
the university righting this wrong.”

The Thomas More Society,
a Chicago-based public interest law firm, together with Wisconsin attorney
Jerome Buting, have demanded that the Walworth County (Wisconsin) Fair reverse
its initial rejection of booth renewal from “Peter’s Net,” a group promoting
Catholic teaching and Catholic churches in Walworth County.

Thomas More Society
claims that the fair’s rejection of the group is contrary to the fair’s
standard policy for returning exhibitors and that it amounts to illegal
discrimination against religious speech. The Peter’s Net booth promotes
Catholic Church teaching through visuals and activities.

“By silencing Peter’s
Net’s religious speech, the fair is wielding the censor’s scissors out of
anti-religious bias,” added Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the
Thomas More Society. “The First Amendment guarantee of free speech and the
civil rights law guaranteeing religious liberty on the part of places of public
accommodation alike compel the fair foundation to allow religious speech a full
and equal voice.”

According to Paula
Emmerth, executive director of Peter’s Net, her group hosted a booth at the
2013 Walworth County Fair, which Fair staff members affirmed to Ms. Emmerth did
not violate any of the Fair’s probationary requirements for first time
exhibitors. The Peter’s Net booth fully complied with the Fair Foundation’s own
principles, “provid[ing] the citizens of our area with a wholesome and
educational experience.” Nevertheless, at the close of the fair, two fair staff
members informed Ms. Emmerth that the fair would not accept Peter’s Net’s
deposit for a 2014 booth reservation. The staff gave vague reasons for the
denial, which the Thomas More Society and Attorney Buting contend are
pretextual, and really amount to unlawful discrimination against the group’s
religious speech.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) attorney and Faith On Trial guest, Erin Mersino, has been given
the “Defender of the Faith” award by Legatus, America’s largest organization of
top Catholic business owners. The award was presented to Mersino by John
Hunt, the Legatus Executive Director, last Friday morning at the annual Legatus
convention in Orlando, FL.

According to
Hunt, recipients of the award have exhibited perseverance and a visible defense
of the tenets of the Catholic Faith, many times at some personal risk. “We are
deeply grateful to Erin for her service to Legatus, to the Church and to the
constitution that we all hold dear.” said Hunt, as he presented her with the
award.

The Thomas More
Law Center (TMLC) is a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. TMLC’s mission includes defending the religious liberty of Christians
guaranteed by our Constitution. Erin was chosen for the award, in part,
for her prescient, creative and tireless work in defense of religious freedom
and her service to those whose religious rights are under attack.

Erin’s defense
of religious freedom includes her representation of 23 plaintiffs challenging
the Obama Administration’s HHS Mandate, and her defense of Father Ray Leonard,
the contract Naval Chaplain who was banned from celebrating Catholic Mass
during the recent government shut-down and threatened with arrest if he
volunteered to celebrate Mass or if he entered the chapel.

Richard
Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law, commented, “Erin
is not just an outstanding and courageous attorney; her dedication and
unyielding work ethic are what sets her apart. Her passion for these
principles, religious freedom and the faith, makes her an undeniable force to
be reckoned with.”

Friday, February 7, 2014

Attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom have
appealed a ruling that held Missouri officials were within their rights to deny
a Christian pre-school access to a state program because it was a religious
school.

Trinity Lutheran Church Child Learning Center
in Columbia sought a grant from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Solid Waste Management Program to participate in the 2012 Playground Scrap Tire
Surface Material Grant Program. The center wished to remove and replace a large
portion of the pea gravel surfacing on its playgrounds with a safer, recycled,
pour-in-place rubberized product.

Because the program has a limited amount of money to distribute, the department
ranks the applications to determine which applicants will receive grants.
Trinity Lutheran scored fifth out of 44 applicants, and the department provided
grants to 14 projects in 2012. Nonetheless, the department disqualified Trinity
Lutheran solely because it is operated by Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia.

Despite the fact that the
department recently admitted that it allowed religious pre-schools to participate
on at least 15 occasions, it continues to defend its denial of Trinity
Lutheran’s application by pointing to a section of the state constitution that
prohibits government funding of religion. ADF attorneys explain, however, that providing
grant monies for the purpose of purchasing recycled tires for a playground is
clearly not furthering religious purposes.

“That same section of the state constitution also states that ‘no preference
shall be given to nor any discrimination made against any church, sect or creed
of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship,’” said Senior Legal
Counsel Erik Stanley. “The state cannot single out this pre-school for
exclusion when it has allowed other religious daycare centers to participate in
the program in the past.”

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Last week,
in response to a question from FOX News about how the IRS treats pro-life,
pro-family and conservative organizations, President Obama told Bill O’Reilly that
there was not

Sally Wagenmaker

a “smidgen” of corruption in the IRS.Was he correct? Are conservative leaning and
Christian groups being singled out?

The Thomas More Society says it is “shocked” that the president would deny IRS abuse, and
it should know: it represents many of the groups that have been targeted [see earlier story]. Next Tuesday on Faith On Trial Chicago Attorney Sally
Wagenmaker, special counsel with the Thomas More Society will be our guest and
will discuss these issues.

Through
her law office, Wagenmaker & Oberly, LLC, Sally provides legal counsel in corporate, tax, employment, and
real estate matters for nonprofit, tax-exempt clients. She is president of the
Northern Illinois Chapter of Christian Legal Society and a director of the
national Christian Legal Society.

Join Deacon Mike Manno, co-host Gina
Noll and Sally Tuesday morning at 9 (Central) on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM;
88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming live on IowaCatholicRadio.com. The program
will be re-broadcast at 9 p.m. and don’t forget to “like” us on Facebook and
follow us on Twitter (@FaithOnTrial).

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

After
irrefutable evidence of corruption in the IRS, including harassment of pro-life
organizations, why would Obama deny that corruption took place?

President Obama told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that the recent
IRS targeting scandal had “not even a smidgen of corruption.” The denial-laden
interview on Sunday leaves the Thomas More Society shocked, as the President
adamantly rejected the suggestion that the IRS was abusing groups not in
concert with his administration. He claimed that IRS officials were confused
about how to implement laws governing tax-exempt groups. The Thomas More
Society, however, a national public interest law firm based in Chicago, was
heavily involved in providing Congress with evidence of specific wrongdoing on
the part of Lois Lerner—disgraced former IRS director of the exempt
organizations division—and her staff.

“Thomas More Society has defended
six pro-life organizations whose First Amendment rights were trampled upon by
the IRS because of the groups’ dedication to the sanctity of life,” said Peter
Breen, vice president and senior counsel of the Thomas More Society. “In fact,
in May and August of 2013, Thomas More Society produced two memos to the House
Committee on Ways and Means, totaling over 500 pages of evidence that the IRS
specifically targeted and harassed pro-life and conservative charities,
illegally questioning their religious activities and withholding their tax
exemptions. Frankly, we are shocked that President Obama would state that there
was ‘not even a smidgeon of corruption’ involved in the IRS scandal. The Obama
Administration must stop making excuses to cover up the IRS’ illegal activity
and instead deal justly with the corruption and scandal that occurred.” The
following links record the Thomas More Society exposure of the IRS pro-life
discrimination scandal:

Monday, February 3, 2014

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest
law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced today that it has filed a
federal lawsuit challenging the Town of Campbell, Wisconsin’s ordinance which
police are enforcing to prohibit citizens from displaying the American Flag and
wearing t-Shirts which call for the impeachment of President Obama on the
highway overpass managed by the Town.

At issue is the enforcement of the Town of Campbell’s
ordinance, 9.12, which prohibits the display of signs and flags on, or within
100 feet, of the only pedestrian overpass managed by the Town of Campbell. The
Town enacted the ordinance on October 8, 2013 in response to some angry calls
about the “Impeach Obama” expression on the t-shirts and the resulting media
attention.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Wisconsin on behalf of La Crosse residents Gregory Luce and
Nicholas Newman against the Town of Campbell, its police chief, and one of his
officers. Luce and Newman were participating in a nationwide movement called
“Overpasses for America.”

Erin Mersino, a TMLC attorney and frequent guest on Faith
on Trail, who is handling the case, said, “Viewpoint discrimination is one of
the most harmful threats to our freedom of speech. The answer to contempt
of a certain viewpoint is not to silence that viewpoint, but to invite more
speech and create a discourse. That is one of the most fundamental tenets
of our Republic. The ordinance at issue turns the public sidewalk on the
overpass, which is otherwise open to the public into a dead speech zone.”

The lawsuit claims that the Plaintiffs’ constitutional
rights to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly have been violated and that
the Ordinance is unconstitutional on its face and as applied by the police.
Because the Plaintiffs wish to continue their constitutionally protected
speech, they asked the Court to enter a Preliminary Injunction banning further
enforcement of the ordinance during the pendency of the lawsuit.

Gregory Luce is a Catholic who is pro-life and opposes President
Obama for many reasons including the President’s actions in support of
abortion. On October 24, 2013, Luce along with a few of his supporters
appeared on the pedestrian overpass wearing t-shirts that collectively spelled
out “IMPEACH” on one side and “OBAMA” on the backside. A Town of Campbell
police officer confronted Luce and his supporters and ordered them to leave or
receive citations. Luce and his supporters left as ordered. This
police action also thwarted a similarly planned demonstration by Luce on public
land 100 feet from the overpass in question, which was also prohibited by the
challenged ordinance.

Plaintiff Nicholas Newman is a patriotic American.
On October 27, 2013, Newman appeared on the overpass in question carrying an
American Flag to express his pride for his country and the ideals on which it
was founded. Police issued Newman a citation for displaying the
American Flag in violation of the ordinance, which carries a fine of $139.00.

The pedestrian overpass consists of only a sidewalk with
a fence on either side. Sidewalks are considered by the courts as
traditional public forums.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the
Thomas More Law Center, commented, “The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated
that a bedrock principle of the First Amendment is that government cannot ban
the expression of ideas just because some find it offensive. In
fact, the Supreme Court has allowed the burning of the American Flag on the
grounds that it is matter of free expression. So I’m astonished that the
Town of Campbell and the police department think it can ban a citizen from
displaying the American Flag.”

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Faith on Trial is where we examine the influence of law and society on Christianity. Here we will look at those cases and events that impinge on the rights of Christians to fully practice their faith. Join us every Tuesday morning at 9 or listen to our re-broadcast Tuesday evening at 9 (Central). The program can be heard on IowaCatholic Radio: 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM and streaming on iowacatholicradio.com. Host is Attorney and Deacon Mike Manno.